1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method for performing density adjustment processing on image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
At the time of outputting digital data created on a computer by a printer or a multifunction peripheral (hereinafter, called “MFP”), a density adjustment function is utilized in order to adjust the density characteristics of an output.
The density adjustment function includes uniform adjustment performed by changing the inclination of the density characteristics for each input color signal and adjustment by density range in which adjustment is performed independently for each density range on a plurality of density ranges. In the adjustment by density range, the density is adjusted independently for each color and each density range by dividing the density range into a low range and a high range for each color signal besides the entire density range, and this method is effective to achieve improvement in the degree of freedom of the adjustment by a user.
At the time of performing density adjustment on a plurality of density ranges, there is a case where tone reversal occurs in adjacent density ranges depending on the adjustment setting values. The reason for this is that the adjustment setting values in adjacent density ranges affect one another. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-247924 describes the technique to prevent reversal of density by monotonically increasing the output density value for the density portion where density is reversed so as to prevent the reversal of density from occurring in the adjacent density ranges.
However, in the prior art, a detection processing to detect whether reversal has occurred in the adjustment characteristics is interposed, and therefore, there is such a problem that the processing becomes complicated.
The present invention provides an image processing apparatus and an image processing method capable of easily implementing preservation of tone properties by a simple configuration at the time of performing density adjustment independently on a plurality of density ranges.